Page 45 of Against the Wind

Chapter 16

Martin awoke more content even than that morning at Willow House. A great sense of peace flooded him. He had his kitten. All was right with the world.

Donning his clothes, he watched his wife sleep, beautiful and tousled, her auburn hair scattered on the pillow. Best to let her rest after that night. That magnificent night. It was past time he caught up with Sidmouth’s spy, Oliver. Time to turn to the business that had brought him to the Midlands.

After a brief breakfast with John, the pair set off for the Talbot Inn in the town of Belper, just south of Pentridge. Drawing up in front of the building, he noticed it was not unlike the White Horse Inn: tan sandstone with small-paned windows and a slanted gray roof, the common construction for inns in Derbyshire. There must be a quarry nearby.

The innkeeper was a swarthy man with dark hair and eyes, and, Martin was certain, a wariness of the two strangers approaching him where he stood wiping down a counter.

Martin spoke, allowing his French accent to rise and resuming the disguise to which Sidmouth’s spy had responded so favorably. “Can you direct us to a person who is, I believe, lodging with you? One William Oliver.”

The innkeeper eyed them silently for a moment. “And, if’n I know such a man, why would ye be wantin’ to see him?” The Talbot Inn was where many of Oliver’s meetings with unhappy workers had taken place. It was likely the innkeeper welcomed the business that Oliver brought him and, consequently, wary of strangers, particularly those with odd accents.

“Mr. Oliver is expecting us,” Martin explained, maintaining his accent. “We met with him in London when he was speaking with his representatives. I am Mr. Donet, and this is my friend Mr. Fournier. We have business with Mr. Oliver, good sir. He will want to see us.”

The innkeeper’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Pausing in his work, he gave the two of them another slow perusal. “Oliver is staying here, yer right, but just now ye can probably find him in Pentridge at the Dog Inn.”

Martin was not pleased to learn Oliver was holding meetings in Pentridge, so close to his own lodgings, where his new bride was even now. He hoped it was not to be repeated, but short of moving to another town, which he dismissed as too disruptive at this early point, there was little he could do.

Thanking the innkeeper, he jerked his head to John in a signal to leave and they departed.

Kit descended the stairs of the White Horse Inn to the common room where a few lodgers were still eating breakfast. As she sat down at an empty table, a handsome young man perhaps a few years older than she, with the shoulders and muscled arms of a sawyer, brought her a bowl of porridge, warm bread and butter and a pot of tea.

“Good day, ma’am,” he said with an eager grin. “If’n ye need anything else, just let me know. My name’s George, George Weightman.”

Ah, the son of the proprietress, no doubt. Kit had met Nanny Weightman the day before. “No, this will be fine, thank you.” But she couldn’t resist staring at the young man’s face.

She ate her porridge and then took up her sketchbook. George Weightman went about checking on the other guests, and Kit proceeded to draw the comely youth as he cleaned off several tables. From time to time he would glance at her, obviously fascinated by the quick movements of her pencil across the paper.

“What are you drawing, if’n you don’t mind my asking?”

Kit smiled. “I’m drawing you. Your face. Is that all right? I like to draw the faces of people, and you’ve the face of an angel.”

The description did not please him, for he frowned. “Ye don’t mean I have the face of a woman!”

“Oh, no,” she said with a small laugh. “The angels are males, you know. Gabriel, Michael…even Lucifer.” She trailed off as she concentrated on getting his jaw right.

“Well, I suppose when you put it like that it’d be all right.” She recognized a male’s approving assessment in the smile he gave her. “Are you in Pentridge for long? Yer wondrous fair, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Why, that’s very kind of you,” she acknowledged. “As to how long my husband and I will be guests of the inn, I cannot say. But for a while, I think.” She noticed his look of disappointment when she mentioned being married, then returned to her sketching and carefully refined his features in her drawing.

Her subject left Kit as Nanny Weightman’s commanding voice echoed into the room, ordering her son to finish his chores and get along to a meeting. Kit ate the last of her porridge and drank the last of her tea, anxious to have a walk in the morning sun. But just as she was about to leave, the young man returned to hurriedly dust a cabinet near her table.

“Did your mother make the porridge?” she asked, setting down her sketchbook. “It was very tasty with the dried fruits and nuts.”

“Aye. The morning fare is one of her specialties. She bakes the bread, too,” he said with a smile. He was staring at Kit’s hair, something she’d grown used to from men over the years. “Yer hair is the color of a sunset. ’Tis wonderful.”

Having already thanked him for his first compliment, Kit just smiled in return. She didn’t see what harm there could be in allowing this county lad his small crush on a visitor, but she would not encourage him. And she doubted the ton would agree with his assessment of her hair. “Would you like to see my sketch of you? At least the beginning of it.”

The young man came around to stand behind her and studied the partially completed portrait. “Do I really look like that?”

“You do to me, but then I see you through an artist’s eyes.” Not that anyone could fail to see how good-looking he was.

“I like it.”

“I can do one for your mother if you think she would want it.”

“I think she’d like that. Mothers, ye know. When she sees it, she may ask ye to do one of my brothers as well.”